


Third Time Lucky

by elfin



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Jack goes looking for his Doctor





	

**Author's Note:**

> (set after, and at the end of ‘The Day of The Doctor’)

He knows, in the first moment, that he's overshot. He just doesn't know by how long. The man in the black coat with bright red lining looks up at him, one eye slightly wider than the other, and a smile breaks out across his not unfriendly face.

'It's you! How lovely to see you.' Jack opens his mouth to say something apologetic but doesn't get the chance. ‘It’s been so long. How long has it been? Too long, definitely. And I thought we were friends! Oh, but you're not looking for me, are you? Or rather, you are looking for me but not this me. You're looking for the me three...' that most intelligent and crazy of regards sees straight into his head, '..no, two mes back.' A toothy smile becomes the highlight of the strange face. 'He's the me in your heart, isn't he?' The smile falters. ‘I can’t imagine why. He was such a miserable bastard! Why him?' Again Jack can explain but there isn't a pause long enough for him to utter a single word. 'Doesn't matter. None of my business.' He straightens, dropping whatever it is he’s fiddling with. 'Have you still got that time travel cuff thingy?' 

Jack holds out his right arm where the wide leather strap hugs his wrist. This Doctor steps forward, grabs his hand with no hint of emotion or memory, even though he obviously does remember, and makes a couple of adjustments to the vortex manipulator. Then he steps back. 

'There. I've aligned your timeline to his - well, mine, I suppose - so you can go back to the time you need to. Don't tell him I did that.’ He wiggles a long finger and shakes his head. ‘He would never have done that. He was such a stickler for the rules, did you notice? Look who I’m asking! Of course you did. And I know what you're thinking - I was him, he was me, we're the same person. But we're not are we? Clearly. We’re never the same! I don’t understand why people say we are. Our mannerisms are different, our speech patterns are different, our accents are different! If we were the same person, wouldn't we chose the same clothes after every regeneration? Wouldn't that make sense? But no! I remember I once spent an entire lifetime dressed as a cricket player! And then there was the scarf - the one that was too long and kept getting trapped in doors! What was that all about? Your me, he at least got changed once in a while! How have you been, by the way, you haven't said? Have you had a chance to say? Probably not. I've been told I talk too much. Is that true? Not like the other me, huh? Your me? Miserable bastard.'

 

~

 

He hasn't gone back far enough, he knows as soon as he sees him. He's looks younger, although he's so much older than Jack's Doctor. There's something in his eyes that gives away the weight resting slightly heavier on those narrow shoulders.

‘It’s you.' The other Doctor says it with a smile, but he's definitely less chatty than the regeneration that comes after him. Maybe the next one is making up for it. 'Hello.' His expression at least holds genuine warmth. 

'Hi.' 

He knows too, what the first one knew. ’You aren’t looking for me, are you? Or rather, you are but not this me.' There's a pause, and the warmth turns into excitement. 'Ah! I know where he is. No. I mean, I know where he will be. Or rather, when he will be.' Jack's used to conversations like this. 'I remember, from when I was him. A fez fell from the sky just before I married the Queen of England.' Okay, so that’s news.’And then this me fell too.'

'You... met yourself in your own past?'

The odd face lights up. 'Yes! Odd that. You’d think the universe would implode or something.'

'How can you be in the same place twice?’

'Three times, actually. We each have our own timeline. I take it I reconfigured your vortex manipulator thingy to lock onto his? When did I do that?' He waves his hand and shakes his head even as he asks. 'Don't tell me. For you it was probably a second ago and for me it could be fifty years in my future. Timey wimey stuff.' It makes Jack smile to hear the familiar phrase. 'I can give you exact co-ordinates to get you where you need to be.'

'And where's that?'

'Three years ago. 23rd November 2013. Around... four in the afternoon, in the Black Vault underneath the Tower of London.'

'But 2013....'

'I know. My timeline. I broke into his timeline and he crossed back into mine. If you join him then, go back with him when he leaves, you'll have all the time in the universe together.'

Jack smirks. 'I just want to see him again, to say goodbye.'

'Why?'

'Because he's never wanted me around. You've never wanted me around.’

This Doctor waves his hands about in dismissal. ’Nonsense. I need someone like you when I was him. Always such a miserable bastard.’

~

It's a bit dramatic, but he hears the Doctor - the Doctor who is one regeneration on from the one he can't help but be in love with - stop his Doctor from leaving with an unsubtle cough. 

'There is one more thing, before you go....' He sounds uncertain, a little nervous because as he and his subsequent self pointed out, their predecessor is a stickler for the rules and what they’ve done, what he’s doing, definitely breaks more of them in one swoop than Jack’s broken in his whole lifetime. Putting him out of his misery, he sweeps into the room.

'Don't blame them,' he says before anyone else can start, because once they do he finds it difficult to get a word in. 'This was my idea. I just had to find you. Because a smile and a wave across a random bar in a far-flung universe to leave me some other guy's phone number isn't what I call a proper goodbye, given everything we've been through.'

His Doctor is looking at him, not angry, not anything. Just looking. It’s so good to see him again. Just the sight of him soothes every little hurt. 

’And?’ he prompts, cheeky as Jack remembered.

'And I figure you owe me.'

There's a long wait, during which he's more aware of his own heartbeat than he's ever been. Then a smile lights up his Doctor's face, and the lanky, miserable bastard in the pin-stripe suit is across the room and enveloping Jack in a hug that's definitely more than he expected it to be, laughing happily.

'Captain Jack! I have missed you.'

'Really?' He squeaks the word, embarrassed by the sudden evaporation of his trademark bravado.

'Really. Really, truly.' 

Having the one man in the entire universe he wants to spend eternity with right there in his arms is a gift in itself. It’s always been painful to look at the Doctor and to know that’s all he’s ever going to do - look. To touch him, to hug him… he’s holding the most precious, unique thing in the universe. The Doctor lifts his head from Jack's shoulder and surprises him with a brush of his lips across his cheek, across his mouth. 

Something inside Jack cracks open.

'Doctor?' It really is embarrassing that his legendary ego appears to have deserted him. He’s kissed more people, more aliens, than he can possibly hope to remember, but this is different. This isn’t just a seduction and a prelude to sex. This is his heart, held private and closed for so long but invaded by the strange being before him, who took up residence there and never left.

It’s beyond him to refuse the kiss he's been waiting for throughout immortality, for so many lifetimes he's lost count. It’s beyond him to refuse the Doctor anything. But it’s genuine and meaningful, more so than the one he planted on his man's predecessor so long ago that it feels like a million years. It's passionate, and when the Doctor pulls back, hands still framing Jack's face, it's right there in those incredible, age-old eyes.

From behind him, he hears a second unsubtle cough and a voice murmur, ‘Okay. Now I have to re-evaluate a few basic assumptions.’

Jack ignores the other Doctor. ‘I did just come to say goodbye.’

‘But a goodbye isn’t what you really want, is it?’ Christ, how he’s missed that voice.

‘You know what I really want, what I’ve wanted since the day we met. You’ve always known.’

His Doctor nods. ’And also I know I don't deserve to ask this, not after the Master, but come with me. I know you would have done, once upon a time, and I know when I finally relented, I was the last person in the universe you wanted to be with-'

Jack surges forward and kisses him, hard on the mouth, simply to shut him up. ‘You all talk too much! And you all make assumptions on my behalf. What happened on the Valiant wasn’t down to you, it wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you, I don’t hold you responsible. I wanted to be with you then, but I had people who needed me and I was trying to do the right thing.’

‘Do they still need you?’ He shakes his head. ‘They haven’t in a while. I’m all yours.’ He means it, every possible connotation of it.

The Doctor grins like a loon and grabs Jack’s hand, pulling him towards the TARDIS, happily saying as they go, ‘Brilliant! This is going to be brilliant! Should have convinced you to come with me last time. Should have kissed you last time!’ He stops abruptly so Jack’s chest bumps against his arm. ‘Why didn’t I?’ Jack shrugs. ‘I should have done.’ 

The TARDIS is just as Jack remembers her; the warm amber glow which has always felt slightly incongruous, given the Doctor’s wariness of him the last time around. Now, finally, it feels like a reflection of the heat in his eyes and the affection of his words. Jack can only hope this isn’t some cruel trick the universe is playing.

The Doctor lets go of his hand and leaps up to start throwing levers on the console, setting whatever destination he has in mind. Suddenly he stops and looks directly at Jack.

‘You’ll be the first companion I’ve ever snogged.’

He finds that hard to believe. ‘Be serious.’

‘I am being serious.’ He picks up his mallet and hammers home a switch which presumably is being sticky. ‘I don’t usually make a habit of travelling with lovers.’

Happiness swells inside Jack like a helium balloon. ‘There you go again, making assumptions….’ But he shares the Doctor’s smile.

‘Doors? It’s about to get a bit draughty. Oh! Doesn’t that remind you of the first time? Rose and I picking you up before that ship of yours exploded? You were trying to do the right thing then too as I recall.’

Jack goes to close the doors. But before he does he leans out, the Doctor’s happy tirade still bouncing around the alien walls of the ship, and smiles at the one man remaining, who seems to be waiting for them to depart.

‘Not such a miserable bastard now,’ he says with a wink.

The other Doctor shakes his head with a knowing smile. ‘Not with you around, Jack. That was always the problem.’ He leaves, before Jack can ask what he means.


End file.
